How words create your world
Have you ever noticed that when you ‘wake up on the wrong side of the bed’ your day can very quickly unravel into a catalogue of errors; spilt milk as you make your morning coffee, your child wiping her snotty nose on your clean, dark shirt and then you bash your head on the car door (yes, this happened to me and I’ve no idea how).
If you’re superstitious, you might think to yourself, “well, that’s three bad things that’ve happened now so that must be it” and sure enough it is and the day turns a corner. Or maybe, you think, “the world is out to get me” and the day becomes a running commentary of unfavourable happenings.
I’m a certified NLP practitioner and at the heart of this is linguistics. And recently, I’ve found myself reflecting on what I learnt in my training and becoming even more immersed in language; how we speak to ourselves and how we speak to others. And how we talk of things. And how our language impacts our experience.
It’s been layering for some time although there are some moments recently that have made the fire burn brighter; reading Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez, listening to the daily coronavirus briefings, watching how the impact of the pandemic on working mothers is being reported by the media, noticing how my maternity clients talk of themselves and closer to home - noticing the way my own inner voice (critic) is communicating with me.
Language is complicated. Brilliant and powerful. Enabling. And yet it has a great deal to answer for. Here, I’m shining a light on language and I share how by changing your language you can change your experience of life.
Our words create our world
There are approximately 2 million bits of information entering our brain every second. Arguably, a phenomenally large amount of information and the very thought of it is making my brain explode. All the while, we’re broadly able to think straight and have sensible thoughts and conversation.
How? Essentially, as we experience something we take in information through our five senses. As we take in the external event, we automatically and subconsciously process it. We put the information through filters – such as our belief system, values, memories – and as we filter the information we delete, distort and generalise it. And this creates our internal representation – a very personal representation of an experience.
The filters, by the way, are an accumulation of your past and some of the beliefs, values, experiences embedded before you could even talk. And that’s the thing to remember; it’s possible that your thoughts (and so, your behaviours) are being driven by beliefs, for example, that are no longer relevant or valid. You’ve just never stopped to question something that you’ve lived with forever.
And this is why my experience of children’s bath time will be different to my husband’s even though we are both ‘having the same experience at the same time’. Or why the same glass of wine will taste different to me and you. And why there’s always more than one side to the story. And why there is rarely a single and absolute right answer.
Because the filtering both reduces and changes the event according to our personal backdrop. Let’s look at our bath time.
If you were to ask me and my husband about bath time last night, it’s highly possible you’ll get two different accounts:
I might tell you it was a bubble bath, he might not
He might tell you water got poured out of the bath onto the carpet, I might not
We both might tell you about our 1-year old face-planting under the water. One of us might tell you it was funny, the other might tell you it was scary
Both these accounts are correct. We’ve simply told the story according to our individual and personal filters.
And knowing this is really helpful. It enables us to decide to challenge ourselves and shift our perspectives; to see things in an alternative way.
And where does language come in?
Well, we use language to express ourselves; through the words we speak, our tone of voice and also our body language.
Paying attention to your language (and the responses you get when you communicate), you can start to notice how you’ve interpreted your experiences.
You can then begin to work with, challenge and perhaps even restore the information you’ve deleted, distorted and generalised. Let me show you how.
Choose to challenge your inner voice
Your internal dialogue. Self-talk. Thoughts. Our inner voice is usually a familiar one.
It is things that we say to ourselves based on our filters. And remember - our filters are embedded from past experiences, including social conditioning.
In my coaching work, I hear about some very critical, mean and harassing inner voices. Especially, from working mums. Things like – ‘I’m a bad mum’, ‘I’m not good enough’, ‘I can’t do this’, ‘I’m unworthy’.
The inner voice is hugely powerful. And can be sabotaging; impacting our confidence, our self-belief, how we feel, how we perform.
The good news is that if this is you, you’re in a prison of your own making and you have the key to let yourself out. The words we say to ourselves are not true; rather they are a representation we’ve created. And this means they can be changed.
And you can start this today with an exercise called the compassionate friend. This is adopted from Dr Kristin Neff, self-compassion researcher and teacher.
The compassionate friend
Think about a friend who’s been struggling or had a hard time. How did you respond?
And now, think about a time you’ve struggled or had a hard time - how do you typically respond to yourself?
Now take a moment to reflect on the responses. What differences do you notice?
What might change if you started treating yourself as you do others?
You can read the full exercise here.
This exercise takes some conscious practice. It’s something I’ve been doing for a few years now and one I rely on when I’m being mean to myself. And what I find again and again, is that when I start to change the language I use when I talk to myself, I truly change my world.
Choose to challenge your external voice
Your verbal language. What we say and what we write.
It’s our way of giving labels to and describing our experiences and ideas to others.
When we talk, we use language to express our internal representation. The words we choose have meaning and impact yet on a day to day basis we don’t often consciously ‘choose’ our words. Intriguing, right?
What this means is that when we’re not getting the results we want or hope for in a conversation, we can choose to change our language. We can look at our language to see we’re interpreted past experiences. And then work with, challenge and perhaps even restore information that we’ve deleted, distorted and generalised.
The power is with you.
Let me show you how this can play out.
Exploring gendered language
There are words and professions we associate with certain genders:
Ambitious, decisive, autonomous are usually associated with male stereotypes
Dependable, care, empathy are usually associated with female stereotypes
Remember the internal representation? We have filtered information – through the lens of our upbringing, cultural norms, social conditioning – and without realising, we’ve created a raft of subtly gender-coded language. We’ve created meaning that’s not necessarily real.
And yet this plays out in a very real way in everyday life.
For example, research by Total Jobs found that in a sample of 77,000 job adverts, 478,175 words carried gender bias – an average of 6 gender-coded words per job advert and they found that only one fifth of the adverts were gender neutral.
What’s important here is the impact this has.
They found women are less likely to apply for roles where the male-gendered words - things like competitive, active and lead - are used.
However, female-coded words - things like support, responsible and understanding - are not as off putting to men but are more appealing to women.
This goes to show the value of being mindful about the language you are using. And challenging the meaning you have created in your own representation of the world to ensure it’s still valid.
And so there you are.
We are “meaning-making” machines, creating our worlds by the words we use. Is it time for you to start using some different language? Or to question the language others are using?
Note
If you have found this article triggering in any way, please know support is available. Perhaps talk to a friend or a family member. And if this doesn’t feel possible reach out to your GP or call the Samaritans for free on 116 123. They are always open.
